North by North West

North by North West

North by North West was an Alfred Hitchcock film in 1959. Hitchcock was famous for thrillers such as Psycho and The Birds and so this film would have created and audience of fans just because it was one of his films.

The trailer for North By North West would have appealed to the audience for man reasons. One main reason was because it was in colour; not a lot of films were in colour in those days, they were mainly black and white so it would have made it very special. Also there were many special effects involved in this film with quite good quality, so that made it very interesting for in those days, to create scenes in movies that are similar to North by North West would be thought to be dangerous.

This film starts with an innocent new yorker advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies who want to stop his interference in their plans to smuggle a microchip out of the country. they follow him all across the country whilst he looks for a way to stay alive. 

This is an archetypal thriller for it is fast pacing, tensions building and exciting. There are some scenes which make you wonder just how the main character, Roger Thornhill, is going to escape, such as the auction scene where he had to start a fight to prevent the villains from getting to him.

There was a red-herring in this movie for we all thought the woman, Eve, was a villain, as she was working for the bad guys and she set Thornhill up. However, we later on found out that she is actually a government spy and she was working against the villains all along. 

There is also a cliff hanger halfway through the movie where Eve shoots Thornhill and the movie just stops. But then we see him getting out of a car later on once the detective has taken him away from the scene, presumably dead.

Hitchcock said that thrillers allow the audience "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it's like." The audience are looking at a nightmare. Thornhill was just an ordinary man who was mistaken for someone he was not, and suddenly a murderer, a convict, a criminal. Nobody wants that to happen and so that is a nightmare. Hitchcock explains that if her were to make this film as a proper nightmare would be, then it would not be a narrative, it would not be smooth. But he made this movie into a nightmare being made of a real life situation and so that is why Hitchcock has succeeded in this film.

Psycho

Psycho

Psycho is an Alfred Hitchcock film that was made in 1960. It stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh and Vera Miles.

Marion Crane is a Phoenix office worker and she is tired of her life; she wants to get married to her lover, Sam, but she can't as she doesn't have any money. Her boss trusts her with $40,000 but instead of putting it in the bank, she runs away with it. However, on her way to see Sam at his California store, she gets caught in a storm, so she pulls into the Bates Motel. The hotel is managed by a quiet man named Norman Bates, who seems to be controlled by his mother. 

Some of Hitchcock's thoughts on this movie is that the audience immediately thinks that the rest of the film will be based on the $40,000, so when Marion gets murdered, it leaves the audience in shock, as the audience believed that she was the main character and the main character never dies halfway through a movie, so it makes the audience apprehensive, knowing that anything could happen and anyone could be killed. The audience also knows that there is a murderer in Bates Motel, however they don't know when or where she/he will strike next, so they have to be ready always, which creates suspense throughout the movie. 

This is an archetypal thriller for it contains non-diagetic music, it contains thrilling music whenever something is going to happen, getting the audience alert and building up suspense and excitement. Also, it creates tension throughout the whole movie, the first part being when Marion stopped her car to let people cross the road and her boss saw her after she told him she was going hoe as she felt ill, so the audience wondered what was going to happen next: Was she the psycho? Was she going to kill him?

Thrillers are characterised by fast pacing, frequent action. This is shown in Psycho in three different examples.

These examples are;

• The shower scene
• The car scene
• The staircase scene

The shower scene is the most iconic famous to be known in the history of horrors. Psycho wasn't seen as Hitchcock's best film, but it was the most memorable and Horrors nowadays owe a lot to this movie, especially the shower scene.

The shower scene is very fast pacing with frequent action for she is in the shower washing herself and then suddenly a silhouette appears on the shower curtain with a knife, making the audience wonder how Marion will get out of this situation. They assume that because she is made out to be the main character and in order for her to be the main character she must survive until the very end or not die at all, but she dies early and it leaves a big impression on the audience and it implies that nobody is safe. This scene also has non-diagetic music, quite thrilling as well to show that this scene is going to turn out badly. Then Marion gets stabbed numerous times and it is all very fast-paced throughout the scene.

The car scene is when Marion is trying to get away from her old life: she is driving away but there is a storm, so she can't see her way properly. Throughout her journey she is imagining what she has left behind; what her boss and colleague would be saying as well as her sister and everyone's reaction on her departure. This scene contains non-diagetic music and it starts to get louder once we hear everyone talking, making the scene very chilling and like something is going to happen. This scene creates a red-herring which is something that we think is going to happen but doesn't and it makes her seem like she is the psycho.

The staircase scene is when Arbogast, the detective, is trying to dig out information on the mother. He goes into the house and up the stairs. However, it then changes angle, where you can see a door opening and a silhouette of someone walks out. As Arbogast gets to the top of the staircase, a woman attacks him, presumably the mother and then she stabs him. He then falls down the stairs, again it is all fat paced and then when he gets to the bottom of the staircase, she stabs him numerous times. The music is chilling, it is like someone scratching their nails on a chalkboard, and it creates tensions and chills throughout the scene.

MacGuffin

MacGuffin

A MacGuffin is known by other names, such as McGuffin and MaGuffin. 

It is an object or device in a film that serves as a trigger for the plot. The audience doesn't care much for it but the characters do. The audience may care for it at first, they may wonder what it is for, and why the characters are so obsessed with it, but it is soon forgotten. This object drives the story forward, and it is of vital importance to the heroes and the villains even if it was an unimportant object or just mentioned and never seen. To the audience, they are seen as meaningless and easily replaceable.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was an English film director and producer. He was born on August 13, 1899 in Leytonstone and died on April 29, 1980 in Bel-Air, Los Angeles.
Hitchcock made around about 53 films, but he also directed others, such as Aventure Malgache in 1944.

His most famous film was "Psycho," which was in black and white, for it contained the iconic shower scene in which many horrors nowadays owe a lot of their ideas to. This was also quite a shocking movie as well, although it wasn't seen as Hitchcock's best film, it was the most famous and shocking. It was shocking for the fact that he killed off the supposed main character, Marion, about a third into the movie. The early death of the main character who was seen as the heroine, the violence of the shower scene and the many innocent lives destroyed by a disturbed murderer became Hitchcock's trademark, and was the reason why many other producer's and directors copied them for their own horror movies.

Hitchcock appeared briefly in his films, only slight glimpses though, easily missed, but it could show that these stories can happen in real life, and that is why it is so scary. He has a famous quote, that thrillers allow the audience "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it's like," which could mean that the audience need to experience these kinds of thrillers so that they can expect them in everyday life, for they can happen any day, they are normal events that could happen to anybody at any time.

Alfred Hitchcock was harshly treated throughout his childhood, and those harsh treatments are reflected into his films. We see harsh treatment and wrongful accusations frequently in his films. For example, in The Birds, the leading lady is accused for starting the deadly attacks of the birds, and throughout the film, she was constantly attacked by the birds. However, even though Alfred Hitchcock inspired his own films, other films were inspired by his ideas. "What Lies Beneath" is a film that reminds the audience of Hitchcock's film "Rear Window," combining the murder mystery from that film and a may-or-may-not-be supernatural side. The protagonist, Michelle Pfeiffer, is a blonde heroine, the same as the women in Hitchcock films. Moreover, her husband was named Norman, which could be argued that he was named Norman after Norman Bates, from Hitchcock's film "Psycho," where Norman was the Psychopath.

Hitchcock even has his own style of movie, named Hitchcockian. Hitchcockian films are made with styles and themes similar to Alfred Hitchcock's. Some of these characteristics can be the platinum blonde woman, the domineering mother, an accusation of an innocent man, characters who switch sides or cannot be trusted, average people being thrust into dangerous situations and the use of MacGuffins or plot devices.

Welcome Post

Welcome Post

Hi! My name is Dylan Smith and this blog is about thrillers. I will be posting about things like Alfred Hitchcock and the different features in his films and all of the other thrillers. These features could be cliff hangers and red-herrings. 

Exercises will also be done by myself then posted on this blog. These exercises include sound and lighting exercises. 

Genre & Narrative

Genre & Narrative

There is a theme in film called Macro Elements. Macro refers to Genre and Narrative. Genre is another word for category but it is usually used more in film and media.

There are many different genres, most of which are listed below;

• Musical
• Drama
• Romance
• Sci-Fi
• History
• Mystery
• Documentary
• Action
• Animation
• Horror
• Western
• Comedy
• Thriller
• Family
• Fantasy
• Musical
• Crime
• Sport
• Adventure

Sometimes genres mix with each other. For example; romance and comedy better known as a rom-com. 

There are two main types of narrative. They are linear and non-linear.

Linear narrative is when the story goes in a straight line, from beginning, to middle, to end. This process is used often in movies. 

Non-linear narrative has no order. It may start in the middle or maybe the end.

Rules and Conventions of a Thriller

Rules and Conventions of a Thriller

A thriller is a range of overlapping sub-genres, which follows specific rules in order to create a specific effect on the audience. Thrillers are regarded as fast-paced, regular action, including creative heroes who must stop the more powerful or clever villain. 

Some of the characteristics of a thriller are;

• The setting - The location is usually in an exotic place such as foreign cities, for example James Bond is always in foreign cities.

In some thrillers the hero is an ordinary person where such extra-ordinary things have happened to them. This is becoming more popular in thriller movies as audiences like to relate their situation to the film as it is more realistic.

In a thriller film the narrative is often centred around a crime, often murder, where the theme is revenge and the person murdered is someone close to the protagonist, who is murdered by the antagonist.